Retribution
by brokenxinsanity
Summary: Spoilers for 5x08(and 5x09)! - Damon recalls the last time he was in the Augustine Project, haunted by his past and forced to relive the nightmare all over again. Just as he starts to think his time at Augustine is permanent, Damon receives help from someone he thought was long gone, and when Dr. Wes unleashes his secret weapon, Damon is forced to face his dark past.
1. The Prison

_The only person who fears nothing is one who has nothing to lose..._

**FLASHBACK TO 1953,** He wasn't sure how long he'd been out for - or how many times they had experimented on him. The cold stone against his skin inside the dark cell he was in, was his only comfort. Damon had only one thought on his mind - _hunger_. It was eating away at him, the beast calling, bouncing off the walls inside his mind, craving for blood. It was driving him mad, calling out to the darkness inside him. There is darkness inside all of us, though Damon's was probably more dangerous than most. Still, we all have it—that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it. Some use it as a shield to hide behind, like Damon had done in the past, while others use it as an excuse to do unconscionable things. But, truly, the darkness is simply a piece of the whole, neither good nor evil unless you make it so.

Augustine wasn't going to let him go unless Damon did the truly unthinkable thing - turn off his humanity. And Damon had been taught by his father not to be wavering, but it was so hard when he felt the constant need to turn it off, even if just for a minute or two, just to end the torture.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door of his cell creaking open and a body landing close to him. The jet black hair was recognized immediately.

"Davina?" He called out to the woman.

Slowly, she turned her head toward him, her face and hair matted with blood.

"What happened?"

"I tried to escape," Davina rolled over onto her back, groaning as her back met the stone floor. "Didn't work, obviously."

This wasn't the first time he's heard this, in fact, if he hadn't been mistaken, he was sure that this was Davina's fifth attempt this week. And it was only Wednesday. Each time she attempted, he pleaded with her not to, frankly for his own selfish needs. Davina was the only person that he could talk to in this place. The only person that could see straight through his bullshit. He wondered if perhaps, subconsciously, he was trying to sabotage her efforts by setting the bar too high, trying to keep her with him longer; but surely his subconscious wasn't that stupid?

"One of these days, they're going to kill you." He whispered.

"I haven't gone down without a fight yet," She lifted herself up into a sitting position against the wall with a single hand, leaning against the cold stone as she lifted her left arm and reset her shoulder blade. The crack that was heard when it was put back into place made Damon wince. "And I'll be damned if I ever go down without a fight."

For a split second, Damon Salvatore actually chuckled. "You're such a stubborn fighter."

"Mhm," Davina said, "And sometimes, I'm a whole damn army."

Davina eyed Damon as silence fell between them. She'd been a silly girl who'd dreamed of love, and a stupid girl who'd declared love a fraud; but she'd never imagined that when she found it, it would be richer, more powerful than dreams, and the impossibility of keeping it more painful than the worst betrayal. She couldn't voice her desire though, in fear that the dark haired man would leave her forever and she'd be stuck without his company for eternity.

The door to the cell opened again and this time, both Damon and Davina were pulled from the darkness by rough hands. Injected with vervain was the only way that subdued them, as their unconscious bodies were dragged away from the cell and off to another room...

**PRESENT DAY, **Damon's head jerked up from his unconsciousness, panic surrounding him as he realized just where he was. His head turned and his worst fear was alive again. Right there, carved into the stone next to him, was his initials _D.S._ with the year _'53_ just below it. Fear clenched at the vampire's heart like a vice-grip, memories of his torture and torment coming back to haunt him again. He was back in his nightmare. More memories from the his hellish days in the cell flashed through his mind, threatening his sanity.

******FLASHBACK TO 1953**, When Damon groggily woke, the first thing he heard was a blood curling scream. Tied down on the cold slab next to him, was Davina, her stomach carved open, blood everywhere, she was fighting against the restraints, trying her damnedest to get free.

"Ah, you're awake. Good." He barely registered who had said it before the pain in his own abdomen took over. He refused to scream, though. It would give them the sick satisfaction and Damon would be damned if he would give them that. The torment went on for what seemed like days, but was really only a few hours. They cut them open, take out organs, study them, then put them back and watched the tissue form back from where it had been cut. It would go on, over and over, until finally, Damon was taken back to his cell and two hours later, Davina was thrown in with him.

He still hadn't quite healed from his torture, but still forced his body to move toward her, if anything to make sure she was still alive. Barely, it seemed like they drained her of nearly all her blood...

**PRESENT DAY, **"Good news," Dr. Maxfield began, stepping into the office of the old study. He stopped just short of the desk and clapped his hands together. "I got a return customer."

"Who?"

"You might remember the name," Wes smirked, "Salvatore?"

The one he was speaking to raised an eyebrow, then casually took a sip of his tea. "Well, that's very intriguing." He gave Wes an approving glance, having captured one of the two vampires Augustine couldn't break.

"I think it's time we had a little chat with our friend."

Dr. Maxfield looked like a kid that had just been served the candy bowl and could have however much he wanted.

_This was going to prove very interesting._

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**_AUTHOR'S NOTE: What do you guys think? :) Let me know with a review!_**


	2. The Darkest Night

**FLASHBACK TO 1953, **It had been going on weeks now, with no indication that the torture was ever going to end. Davina had been subjected to a more worse fate, and he had been there when they did it. Some kind of poisonous acid had been poured into her wounds from when they carved in to her, injected into her bloodstream and worst of all, poured down her throat.

"Subject 21050 seems to be unresponsive to the after effects of the acid treatment. Unresponsive to light and sound. Subject 21050 has not fed in a week and a half and her body show no signs of decay."

Damon knew the reason why she hadn't shriveled up like a wet paper bag, because when they were in their cell together, Damon fed her his blood, it wasn't much, but it kept her alive, just barely.

Inside us all are pieces of that which makes the negative. Demons are neither good nor bad. Like most people, they have many faces. It is that inner essence, or drive, if you will, that we all have that guides us through our lives. Sometimes those voices that drive us are whispered memories that live deep inside and cause us such pain that we have no choice except to let it out and to hurt those around us. But at other times, the voice is love and compassion, and it guides us to a gentler place. In the end, we, alone, must choose what path to walk. No one can help us with it.

When she had been thrown back into the cell later that night, she was unconscious. As Damon pulled her against him, he listened carefully, her heart was still beating, faintly. A soft sigh of relief escaped from his chest. Not a second later, Davina jolted awake and began clawing at his arms. "Hey... Davina, it's okay, look at me." He struggled through her weak hands to take her face in his hands. "It's me. It's Damon."

As soon as he said his name, she stopped struggling and stared up at him with those silver eyes, full of pain and betrayal. She attempted to speak, but when she opened her mouth, not a sound came out.

"Don't speak. Rest." Damon whispered.

She could feel the tears bubbling up, hot, wet tears streamed down her face as soon as the thought crossed her mind. Damon didn't know how to console her, so he did what he could only think of. He brought her against his chest and let her cry into his shoulder. It was the least he could do, after all she'd been through. Davina didn't mind at all.

She wished she hadn't succumbed to irritation. Because she wanted to know about his inner feelings. She always thought people were like pieces of art glass- strong enough to handle and use, delicate enough to shatter under a strong blow, and filled with swirls of color that fascinated the eye. But while most people-and most glass-allowed light through, she could discern nothing of Damon's heart and soul through the smoke and mirrors he held before him.

It was decided then, that Damon Salvatore was going to be break out of this hellish place.

**PRESENT DAY, **"Have you heard from him?" Stefan asked as he walked into the manor.

"No." Elena shook her head, "He's not picking up his phone and I can't find him anywhere."

"Maybe this Augustine vampire got him?" Katherine said from behind Stefan.

Stefan stopped dead in his tracks. "Did you just say Augustine?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Stefan?" Elena stepped toward him and put a hand on his arm. "Do you know something?"

"Yeah," Stefan shook his head, dragging himself out of his thoughts. He looked at Elena. "I need to find someone."

He headed for the door.

"Wait, Stefan! Who?!"

"She's a friend of Damon's." He neglected to tell Elena the real story.

He was out the door, leaving a dumbfounded Elena with her doppelganger.

**FLASHBACK TO 1953, **They hadn't been experimented on for a few days, giving them time to heal, and with what little blood they were given, the wounds were still not fully healed. Damon jolted awake, haunted by nightmares once again. Davina jumped from her place on his chest, looking at him with wide eyes. Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing she could never have him.

"Bad dream?" She whispered.

Night was upon them and he faintly remembered even falling into a somewhat of a peaceful slumber until he was haunted by his dark memories.

"More like a nightmare." Damon replied. He eyed her up and down, "Have you slept?"

There was a moment of silence between them before Davina shook her head, and Damon could tell she was trying to hide her tears. It told him that she couldn't even close her eyes without reliving the memories all over again. Tortured by her tears, he pulled her against him, as close as he possibly could, clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper. "I'm sorry," He told her. He was sorry that she was stuck in this hellish place and more importantly, he was sorry that she had to go through it at all.

He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. For a brief, fleeting moment, Davina imagined Damon, just the way he was now, only he spoke more words; _ "I'm sorry." And then slowly, he would bend his head, covering her mouth with his own and say, "I'm so damned sorry."_ And everything would be then Damon surprised her.

He raked his fingertips through her unkempt hair and she closed her eyes against his touch. "Some women need no jewels to make them sparkle. You are one of them."

You can't outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little side bets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in, risk everything you have to play the game or you don't play at all. And if you can't play, you can't win.

_God damn him_, she thought.

**PRESENT DAY, **When Stefan arrived back at the manor, both doppelgangers watched in curiosity as a dark-haired woman walked in before him. Stefan stood next to her.

"Who is this?"

"Angelia Craven." Stefan began, "This is Katherine Pierce and Elena Gilbert."

The woman stuck her hand out to Elena. "Call me Davina." She gave Stefan a pointed look for revealing her real first name. Elena shook her hand, amazed at the handshake grip the woman held. When she let go of her hand, Davina turned to Katherine. "You'll excuse me if I don't want to shake your hand." She gave her a disgusted look and turned back to Stefan.

"So why drag me back from New Orléans to this place?"

Stefan scanned her face, careful of his wording and said, "Augustine." As soon as the word left his mouth, he saw Davina's face go void of any color, her hands curled into fists and she struggled to maintain her composure. It was as if it was 1953 all over again. Elena reached out and touched her forearm gently. The searing pain caused Davina to yank her arm away and narrow her eyes.

"Why.." She swallowed thickly, her gaze lifting to Stefan. "Why would bring me here to discuss _that_?"

"Because we believe they're still in operation and... they have Damon." Stefan answered.

As if any more color could drain from her face, it did.

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_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: What do you think? Leave me a review and lemme know! If you have any questions/etc or you just want to know about the story faster than like say an email, and you have Tumblr, then you should follow me, because I try to make sure I post the link to the next chapter there (and I post snippets/things that didn't make it into the story/etc, too!) So check out my tumblr at misguidedxangel (just search tumblr for it, since refuses to let me put a link in)**_


	3. Relentless

**PRESENT DAY, **"What does this secret society do?" Elena had asked for, for the third time. Davina still refused to answer her, refused to go back into that dark place again.

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing if they have Damon, I want to know."

"No, you don't."

"Yes I do."

"No, _you don't_." Davina put emphasis on her last words, getting very annoyed with the doppelganger. She stood quickly, needing to get away from the questioning, before she would something stupid and reckless.

Unfortunately, Elena wasn't going to let her go that easily.

"Wait!"

She spun around and grabbed the doppelganger around the throat, pinning her to the wall. "You want to know what they did to us?!" She yelled, "They would cut us open and take each organ out, study it and then put it back in. Over and over. We were vervained constantly, to keep us from doing anything drastic - do you know what that feels like?" She squeezed her throat tight. Stefan tried to stop her, but she was a good few hundred years old than him, so she just threw him off. "We rarely had blood. We were starved of it. We went crazy. They poked us, put us through hell. Acid was poured down my throat, injected into my blood and then to add insult to injury, it was poured into my open wounds!" Memories flashed and Davina's fist collided with the wall next to Elena's head as she pushed herself off the doppelganger, her breathing heavy.

Katherine watched with curiosity, and it was then that she realized that Stefan wasn't the only one suffering from PTSD.

"I'm going to Augustine." Davina said after a few moments of silence. She grabbed the leather jacket off the top of the chair and headed for the door.

"Wait, we'll go with you!"

Davina was out the door without another word.

**FLASHBACK TO 1953, **Have you ever noticed how when you're happy, time seems to pass by fast, while when you're miserable it goes real slow? Life would have been a blink with you whether it lasted a millennium or a month. Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before. Sadly, Damon didn't think this was the case anymore. He wasn't free.

He watched Davina, attempting to sleep on the stone floor, the moonlight shining though the small window, covering her body in a glow. When you're soul mates, it hits you like lightning, and you know that's the one person in the world you were meant to be with. You don't think you're soul mates; you just know it's your destiny whether you like it or not. She didn't know how to love, to give herself to someone, to out herself in someone else's keeping and take him into hers. She didn't trust anyone with her heart - or the darker places of her soul.

And to be honest, Damon didn't blame her.

Not after everything that happened.

He felt safe with her. He'd never been safe with another human being, not since he'd been turned into the vampire that he was now. He'd never been able to trust. He could never give that last small piece - all that was left of his humanity - into someone else's keeping. And now there was Davina. She let him be whatever he had to be to survive. She didn't ask anything of him. There was no hidden motive. No agenda. Just acceptance. She was different - imperfect, or so she thought - and she knew what it was like to fight to carve out a space for herself. She was willing for him to do that.

There were a thousand secrets in her eyes, a thousand wounds. A lifetime of distrust and betrayal. Isolation. How did one overcome such things? Damon couldn't give her an answer if she asked him, because he was still trying to figure it out for himself.

Torture can be a two edged sword.

**PRESENT DAY, **There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on whats brewing for tomorrow. There is a reason for everything. You might not be able to figure it out, and time might have made us all forget it, but the reason is there all the same. She had been forced into the car by Stefan, and now she was in the car with two annoying doppelganger and annoying hero hairdo.

"Living is a risk," She snapped at the two doppelgangers arguing in the backseat. "Every decision, every interaction, every step, every time you get out of bed in the morning, you take a risk. To survive is to know you're taking that risk and to not get out of bed clutching illusions of safety. Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don't notice it, but, out of the blue, it'll flare to life." She gazed out the window at the passing trees and there wasn't a single thought of happiness she could find buried in the back of her mind.

But then again, you always got more respect when you didn't get a happy ending.

Life is like molten glass. It flows, it's flexible, it can be molded and shaped and...what do you say? Ah, yes. It holds vast potential. You have a number of uncertainties in your melt right now. But they will always be there in one form or another. Always. Unlike molten glass, life can't be fixed or frozen into a pretty vase and placed on a shelf to gather dust.

"There are certain people I trust no matter what. Even when it seems like they've turned into monsters, you need to stay true to them." Davina said, "Because, in the end, they'll be the ones backing you up."

Elena took her words to heart. She must've been talking about Damon. She saw the way the woman went stark white to murderous in half a second when Stefan had told her that Damon was in trouble. Elena was starting to think she wasn't getting the whole story.

It didn't take long for them to reach the place Davina had given them.

"Stay put. I'll go in, get Damon and bring him back here."

"That's -!" Elena started, but drifted off at the evil look she was given.

"That's an order, is that what is. I'm not going to play vamp politics with you, nor am I going to be responsible for your life because you faltered when you couldn't keep up with me." Davina checked to make sure that the knife was still hidden in one boot, while a 357 magnum was safely tucked away in the other and used her vampire speed to get to the door, leaving Stefan with the doppelgangers.

She had lost her sanity here. And the best way to find something you had lost was to return to the last place you remembered having it. In her case, she was standing right directly in the middle of the place she last remembered having it. Damn. Davina wanted to believe in fairy tales. She'd read her share, hoping for miracles, but in the end, there was no hundred acre wood to play in with her little stuffed animals. There was pain and crushing disillusionment and betrayal.

One push off with her heels and she was on top of the awning, watching as the guards came out to do their rounds. _Some things never changed, _she thought as she swung her body over and nailed the guard in the chest, round house kicking the other in the face. She snapped the first guard's neck and then going after the other one, her fist going straight through his chest with easy. One pull and she held his heart in her hands.

Locked in darkness that surrounded her like a coffin, pun intended, she had nothing to distract her from her memories but kicking ass.

And that's exactly what she was going to do.

She snuck in the front door without trouble. She let her inner beast out to play as she took out guard after guard, until she was standing just outside the room where Damon was being held. She could see him laying on the metal slab, and appeared to be in a lot of pain.

"Subject 21051, back in Augustine after 60 years of being missing in action."

Davina snorted softly. Kicking the door open, Davina smirked as she stepped through the threshold.

The doctor looked up. "How did you-"

"Fool your guards? They're not very good, didn't put up a great fight." She grinned.

Damon's attention was drawn to her as soon as her voice reached his ears. Her clear eyes burned into his with all the hate and loathing she could muster. Underneath, though, she was terrified. Hate and loathing didn't bother him, but fear was a powerful emotion. Fear causes the dog to bite and Davina was one bitch.

The doctor went to reach for something, but Davina was faster, the dagger shot out of her hand and planted itself into his palm, nailing him to the countertop. Davina's breath stopped. Her heart ceased to beat. The demon within stirred and roared for release, fangs exploded into her mouth, and the red haze of the beast flamed in her eyes.

"I see you've missed me, Craven."

"Miss you?" Davina raised an eyebrow, a short sound of disgust releasing from her throat. "I could cheerfully murder you."

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Dun, dun, dun, cliffhanger! c; hope you guys don't hate me too much.**


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